


He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

by AsterRoc



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Linear Narrative, Self-Harm, Suicide, Tony Stark drinks too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:32:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2082186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsterRoc/pseuds/AsterRoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Clint was carried around by the others, and one time he carried someone else.  A year in the life of Clint, as told in a series of little vignettes with his teammates at the end of that year, and at the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/19458.html?thread=45556226#t46601986):
> 
> _GEN or Any/Clint, Clint getting carried around by the others_
> 
> _yeah basically just the others carrying Clint around, whether it's due to injury after a battle or it's in battle or he's being lazy or he's tired or it's a sex thing, or a 5+1 thing where he gets carried in all sorts of situations_
> 
> _I'm really into Clint/Sam and Bucky/Clint right now, but I'm fine with pretty much anything if a shippy route is taken_
> 
> Didn't do shippy, but oh well.

**1: Natasha**

Tony sips his coffee (nectar of the gods, regardless of what planet the gods may be from) and rubs his forehead. Biting back the hair of the dog that bit him, that’s gotta do the trick.  A press on the latch in the back of the lower left cabinet releases the false drawer under the sink, and he draws out the small bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey. At only sixty dollars a bottle, it’s not the most expensive in the Tower, so it’s cheap enough for mixing.

Halfway through his Irish coffee, Tony’s hangover from celebrating a successful defense of Boston against Doombots the night before (or was it the morning of?) is finally starting to fade when the elevator doors ding and Natasha and Steve stride out, Clint thrown over Natasha’s shoulder fireman style.  Steve is pointedly not looking at the two of them, and tension is written all over his face.

“Hey guys, what’s—” Tony starts to question, when a movement from Steve catches his eye.  Steve shakes his head minutely and his right hand gestures downwards slightly. Tony usually isn’t one to take a hint, but as he turns back to Natasha he sees the storm in her face. And the blood dripping down Clint’s leg from underneath a bandage that seems to have been half ripped off. And that’s right, wasn’t the archer admitted to the SHIELD hospital last night? Everything from last night’s a bit fuzzy, but he definitely remembers Clint being forced into an ambulance by Sam, despite the archer’s protests. 

As Steve comes to a stop beside Tony at the breakfast bar (Tony Stark, putting the “bar” back in “breakfast” since… however long he’d admit to having been legal to drink), Natasha continues to storm past the two of them.  Tony doesn’t even comment on the stains Clint’s blood leaves on the carpet.  Clint lifts his head slightly from where he hangs over Natasha’s shoulder.  With a grin somewhere between wry and sad, and resigned eyes, Clint waves slightly at the two other men as they pass out of view.

Tony waits a few moments, then turns to Steve and gestures a question with his now-empty mug. “Well?” 

Steve sighs. “He wouldn’t stay put at medical and let them treat his wound.  Natasha threatened to throw him over her shoulder and spank him if he tried to escape again.”

Tony’s eyebrows climb. “Jarvis, get me video. And send an intern up with a fresh supply of bandages. And let me know when they’re done so I can tell Clint how stupid he is too.” 

At this last one Steve tilts his head slightly in a questioning gesture. 

"Oh what,” Tony retorts to the unspoken question.  “You going to tell me he’s not an important part of the team?  Or that he’s not a friend of all of us?  You guys stop me when I do stupid self-destructive shit, or at least when you catch me at it.  You guys all take care of me.  Can’t I take care of one of you, too?” 

* * *

**2: Sam**  

“Shit, out of arrows,” Clint reports over the comms. Usually when he’s on missions with just Nat, she has a few spare guns and she’ll lend him one at this point, but today as with most Avengers missions she’s on the ground. Clint used to carry a backup gun despite his preference for bows, but after the events of a year ago, they’d decided it was better for her to carry any spares.  

“Roger that, Hawkeye.”  Steve’s voice is calm and steady as usual. “Come in for resupply.”

Motion out of the corner of Clint’s eye catches his attention.  “Can do, I’ve got a ride coming.”  As the Doombot sweeps close, Clint leaps from the top of the Prudential Tower onto its back. The wind is knocked out of his lungs on impact, and he only barely manages to hold on as the Doombot sinks from the extra weight.  “Shit!” He must’ve misjudged the speed. Clint scrabbles to get a better hold, arms straining; he’s never been more grateful for his upper body strength in his life. 

“Falcon?” he hears Steve through his earpiece.

“Already on it,” the newest member of the team replies, though at more than a year now, Sam isn’t really all that new.

Clint’s fingers are slipping, unable to keep a grip on the slick metal, when the Doombot suddenly takes a sharp turn. Clint’s momentum continues forward and he loses his grip entirely.  For a sickening moment he’s in free-fall, still ten stories above the ground and flying towards the side of a glass building, and then a hand clenches around his wrist and his arm is nearly jerked out of its socket. 

“Fuck, Sam!  I need that arm, that’s my bow arm!” 

“Hah,” Sam laughs as his wings snap back out from his dive and he applies his thrusters.  “We all know you’re ambidextrous.” 

“Yeah, that just means they’re _both_ my bow arm!”

With another application of Sam’s jets, their movement slows but turns into an uncontrolled spiral around each other, and Sam is unable to stop their spin entirely before Clint’s leg slams into the side of a stone building. 

Agony shoots down his leg and radiates up his spine, but Sam manages to deposit him on the ground next to Nat and Steve as he turns to shoot at a Doombot attempting to close in for a kill.  Steve holds his shield up to cover them from falling debris as Nat slams a fresh magazine into the gun in her hands, tosses it to Clint, and draws a new gun for herself from her back.  Catching the gun, Clint pulls off a couple shots at moving shapes above them, both enemy agents of course and not friendlies, and both come down with a single shot each.

The Doombots have thinned out now, and Sam rejoins Tony in cleaning up the stragglers above, but the three grounded Avengers remain alert until Steve gives the all clear.  By this time, Clint has managed to hobble up onto his feet, and begins to walk off the field of combat and away from Nat as quickly as he can while still attempting to hide the extent of his injury. 

Sam lands in front of him.  “Where do you think you’re going?”  Crap, Clint forgot how Sam always sees through him. He pulls out a cocky grin anyway.

“Home, skipping out on the paperwork! The T station over there will take me right to South Station, and then I can hop a Chinatown bus to—”

“Nuh-uh,” Sam replies, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to look menacing with his wings still spread out to either side, blocking Clint’s way.  Clint doesn’t let on just how well it’s working.  “You’re walking wounded, you’re going straight to medical.”

“Walking!  The key word there is walking,” Clint retorts as he hobbles another step to the side, trying to slip around Sam. 

The other man rolls his eyes, and doesn’t bother to argue, just takes off again.  Clint grins at another victory. 

That is until Sam swoops down and grabs him under the armpits and flies him over to the first SHIELD ambulance to arrive on the scene. 

* * *

**3: Tony**

“Clench up Legolas, my ass.  I’m not doing that again!”  Although Clint can’t see Tony’s expression due to the faceplate, the Iron Man armor takes a step backwards so Clint knows he’s surprised. Which is good, Clint takes two steps backwards as well, putting more distance between them so he has a chance to escape if Tony goes for a grab.  Clint’s protests are well-founded: the nuclear wedgie from last time had him sleeping on his stomach for a week afterwards. 

Steve’s voice comes both over the coms and from right in front of them where he’s been calling the plays to set up the field. “Iron Man, Hawkeye, that’s an order. We need Hawkeye atop the Prudential, and I don’t care how he gets there.”  At Steve’s words Tony throws his hands in the air and starts to turn away, and Clint sees his opportunity. 

“Stark!” Clint calls and dashes towards him. Tony starts turning back when, never one to disappoint in the speed of his deductions, he realizes Clint’s intent and bends one knee slightly.  Clint places his right leg on the Iron Man’s bent right knee, throws his left leg behind Iron Man’s back, and lands neatly seated on his shoulders.

Clint raps twice on the top of Tony’s helmet with his free hand.  “Alley-oop, Tin Man!”

“Tin Man,” Tony mutters to himself, but engages his thrusters.  Clint crows as the ground falls away beneath them, and locks his knees around Iron Man’s neck and his legs under his arms. 

“Just don’t fire these bunker busters I’m sitting on,” Clint quips, then seeing an opportunity draws his bow and looses an exploding arrow at a Doombot following them. 

* * *

**4: Natasha**

“Whee!  Giddyup cowboy!” is the sound that greets Tony as he walks into his kitchen at a fucking early hour of the morning.  He blinks a few times at the sight before him.  It’s got to be a caffeine-deprivation induced hallucination, because there’s no way that Natasha would be carrying Clint piggy-back and running around the kitchen while Clint waves a cowboy hat in his hand with a shit-eating grin on his face. 

Tony blinks a couple more times and goes to the coffee machine and inserts a Stark Cup (no poor quality K-cup substitutes in _his_ tower, no siree) into the machine.  Behind him he continues to hear deliberate tromps from Natasha, and giggles from both assassins as they prance out to the living room.  When the machine beeps, he inserts his industrial sized half-gallon mug under the spigot, presses the button for black six sugars, and waits for the ambrosia to dispense. It still hasn’t come out thirty seconds later, and just when Tony starts to warm up his brain and realize something might be wrong it splutters out in a hot torrent, some splashing on his hand.  Tony jerks but manages not to disturb the mug. 

He bites off a few curses, shakes his hand a couple times, and then takes the now full mug.  Tony sips the mug as he exits the kitchen, only to hear a sudden “Whoah, horsie!” and a whinny on his left as Natasha skids to a halt.  Tony glares unmoving at the two of them, both in pajamas (Clint’s gray with black spiders, Natasha’s bright pink with Hello Kitty), both grinning like guilty children, until their faces begin to slowly fall. At this Tony snorts, sips his coffee again, then continues back to his lab.  He’s gonna have to design a better nozzle for the coffeemaker. And blinders so he doesn’t have to see the sorts of shenanigans assassins get up to before he’s had his first dose of caffeine for the day. 

At least Clint’s been doing better. Tony remembers the events of a year ago, and decides not to say anything to the assassins.  Let them play as much as they want, if that’s what Clint needs. After all, it’s not like he hasn’t been there himself. 

Steve’s voice abruptly comes out over Jarvis’s speakers.  “Avengers Assemble!” Tony gulps down the last of his coffee and just barely manages to get his arms up in time for the suit pieces to begin assembling themselves around him.  As Clint and Natasha skid back into the living room, both now in their combat blacks, he with bow in one hand quiver in the other, and she checking the charge on the Widow’s Bite tasers on her wrists, Tony calls out, “Steve, Jarvis, someone update us on the status.” 

“It’s Boston,” Steve replies, relayed through the building’s system by Jarvis.  “And Doombots, a whole lot of them.  Iron Man you go there straight.  Widow, Hawkeye, I’m on the roof of SHIELD, take the jet and pick me up on the way. This one’s gonna be a doozy.”

* * *

**5: Sam**

It’s Sam who notices the small changes in Clint’s behavior. He doesn’t even know the archer all that well, seeing as he’s new to the team, but maybe that’s part of why Sam notices.  

First Clint begins withdrawing into himself, talking less and less to the others. 

Then he gives Sam a present, a small crossbow compact enough he should be able to strap it to his back under the two semiautomatic pistols he usually carries on his rig.  Clint makes the excuse that the crossbow has less of a recoil than Sam’s other weapons, and while he admits that there are times that could come in handy while flying, Sam’s suspicious as to why Clint would be giving away his equipment.

And then Sam sees Clint and Bruce come back from lunch together, laughing and joking with each other, when usually the two have little to talk about.  It isn’t just Bruce either, Sam realizes that Clint is taking time to talk to each one of the Avengers.  

When Clint pulls Sam aside for his turn, Sam gets in the first word.  “So when are you planning to do it?” 

Clint blinks a few times, face blank, clearly nonplussed.  “Do… do what?” he says, voice cracking a little in the middle. 

“Kill yourself,” Sam says, folding his arms over his chest and maintaining eye contact.  “That is what you’re planning, isn’t it? That’s why you’re giving away all your stuff and saying goodbye to us all.” 

Sam isn’t really sure what reaction he expects from Clint, but it’s not for the other man to crumple, his entire body folding down into a fetal position. 

Sam holds Clint in his arms while he cries until his body stops shaking entirely.  He waits until Clint hands him the gun on his own accord, then carries the archer to his bedroom, and sits awake with him throughout the night.  In the morning Sam calls Natasha in to take over for him. When Clint finally falls asleep, Sam and Natasha talk, and the next day they talk with Clint as well. The road to recovery will be long and he may never actually reach “normalcy,” Sam knows this first hand, but they’ll all be there for Clint. 

* * *

**+1: Phil**

Clint wishes for a moment he were Thor, or Hulk, or a super soldier, or that he could don a robotic suit with the strength of twenty men, or at least the eight required to carry a coffin, so he could bear the burden alone.  Instead he is joined by three of those men, or their mortal versions: Clint, Bruce, Steve, and Tony carry the coffin.  Thor carried Phil’s murderer to his justice. 

Clint’s eyes are red, but through sheer force of will he keeps it together as the four remaining men Avengers carry their heavy burden from the hearse to the open pit where the others stand. Fury isn’t dressed much differently from usual, black on black.  Hill wears her dress uniform and stands at attention, hand to her brow in a salute. Sitwell wears a black suit only slightly less formal than the rented tuxes Clint and the other pallbearers wear. Nat wears a black cocktail dress and a black pillbox hat and veil over her face.  Somehow she is both demure and stunning, and both are entirely appropriate.

Together, they lower the coffin, _Phil’s coffin_ , along the straps into the grave, _Phil’s grave_ , Steve taking much of the weight but allowing Tony, Bruce, and Clint to each take their fair share as well.  Clint does not throw himself into the grave after Phil.  Clint does not break down and cry in front of the audience.  Clint does not pull out the gun he always carries to shoot his own brains out. 

Clint holds it together until everyone is gone, and then later climbs the Washington Memorial after hours to scream his frustration, his rage, his impotent fury to the sky. 

Clint does not throw himself off the top, but more because Nat finds him there before he can than for any other reason. _Not today_ , he thinks to himself.  _Not today.  Maybe tomorrow, she can’t care for me forever, she’s just one person._

The Avengers won’t need him forever either, Fury’s on the look-out for more members.  Clint’s certain that once they reach a critical number, he’ll be expendable.

 _Then_. Then he can do it.

**Author's Note:**

> If it's too sad for you, reread it backwards. It's really uplifting and hopeful that way. :) 
> 
> Part 1 was written for [this Tumblr headcanon](http://sociallychallengednerd.tumblr.com/post/92872882765/natasha-walking-through-the-avengers-tower-with%20):
> 
> _Natasha walking through the Avengers tower with her angry face on and Clint thrown over her shoulder fireman style she just storms past everyone and no one speaks Clint just hangs there and sadly waves to everyone as they pass_
> 
> I'm so glad I ran across this headcanon this morning (or was it last night?), b/c I was really stuck on writing this, I just knew I wanted to, and this inspired me to come back to it. The two Tony parts were the first ones I wrote. Originally I wanted this to just be a series of isolated vignettes, but then I realized that if Phil's coffin was the +1, which it pretty much was always going to be, I really needed to say something about Clint's reaction to it. And if Phil's the last thing, I needed it to be reverse chronological. 
> 
> While this doesn’t explicitly have any ships, in my headcanon for this work Clint and Nat are platonic soulmates who might occasionally have physical aspects to their relationship too, Clint had something with Phil before, and there’s something developing between Clint and Sam. 
> 
> Also in my headcanon for this work, Sam tried to take his own life after Riley died, and Tony’s made multiple attempts on his own life as well at indeterminate points in time. Hence their comments about knowing where Clint’s been.


End file.
